From Chicago. I made the plunge to Mastodon (and here) after the Reddit shenanigans and just seeing the repeated bad-faith policies by Twitter. I have been using redirector and libredirect for the last month or two to actively decide who I give my data to just as a fun experiment into best practices.
I think it's slowly starting to be clear that this type of setup will be the way forward for the more tech-savvy, privacy-focused users, and hopefully/eventually it hits the mainstream as well, but otherwise, it's just self-selecting into the type of people I want to be around, which will probably be better for my mental health anyways.
I'm into cycling, trading, sci-fi and FOSS. Currently reading The Expanse and taking a sabbatical year from work
Edit: Just want to encourage people to engage w/ and create content over the next few weeks. Activity and friendly faces are probably the most determining factor in whether someone becomes an active user or just browses for a few minutes
Thank you for your edit to your post. I agree, engagement is key. I never posted on read, just consumed. Your edit encouraged me to be different this time. I want lemmy to succeed and grow. Liking what I see so far!
I have been meaning to get into the expanse. I’ve heard such great things about the show, and the books were often recommended on the various books subreddits when searching for sci-fi books. Will have to start that series.